


Lonely Purple Nights

by Sholio



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Insomnia Leads To Characters Hanging Out In The Kitchen At Midnight, Kid Fic, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 21:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20513597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Zuko can't sleep. And he's not the only one.





	Lonely Purple Nights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [runeofluna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/runeofluna/gifts).

Zuko couldn't sleep.

When Mother still lived in the palace, she always seemed to sense those nights when he was awake and restless. She would wander to his room, and they would go together, his hand tucked into hers, down to the palace kitchens.

The kitchens were a strange place at night, very different from the busy, bustling daytime, when small children wandering about were apt to be scolded or given a task to do, even the Firelord's heir. At night the kitchens seemed too big, a dark echoing space, the fires damped down and rice set out to soak for morning. There were always a few people around at any hour: servants dispatched to collect a late-night snack, scullery maids busily scrubbing pots and floors. But they recognized the Fire Lady, and bowed, and left her alone.

His mother would kneel and breathe life back into the coals of the smallest furnace, gentle licks of flame breathed out between her lips. They would make something simple, a bowl of noodles in broth or a steamed bun reheated over the fire, and they would sit together and eat in front of the flames.

Sometimes Azula joined them, yawning and rubbing her eyes as she toddled into the kitchen and lay down in Mother's lap. Mother would stroke her youngest child's hair and when Zuko wanted to lean against her, she put an arm around him. 

Often he would fall asleep there; they both would. He woke in the morning in his own bed, knowing he must have been carried, with the smell of the kitchen fire in his hair and his sleeping robe.

But now Mother was gone, and the palace at night felt bigger, emptier ... colder.

He wasn't sure what made him wander down to the kitchens tonight. Mother wouldn't be here. Maybe he could just get a snack and go back to bed.

He definitely wasn't expecting a fire already stirred up, casting its flickering glow on the walls. A small kneeling shape was silhouetted against the flames. As Zuko approached quietly, he heard a soft curse, muttered in his sister's voice.

"It's either burned or raw ... how did she _do_ this ..."

"Azula?"

His sister jumped and let out a tiny squeak. Zuko glimpsed something tumble from the end of a stick into the fire.

"Oh, _fireflakes_, not again! Stupid Zuzu, always breaking things. Leave me alone."

Zuko stood and looked down at her. During the day, his sister often seemed bigger than she really was. He feared her tempers and the sharp sting of her fire. But right now she looked tiny, curled up with her bare feet peeking out from under her robe.

"Go away!" she said, and reached into the fire to pull out a charred bun. She held it for a moment, her head bowed, and Zuko heard the tiny sniffle that she would have denied if he admitted he'd caught her at it.

It wasn't about the food. Not really.

Quiet in his bare feet, he went about the large, dark kitchens: collected a steam basket, filled the bottom with water, picked up some of the buns laid out to rise on the counter. 

"Azula?"

"Go away!" 

He crouched beside her and breathed fire gently into the water, as Mother used to. It was a delicate task, not to burn the basket or overcook the buns. He wasn't good at it. The first buns they took out were sticky and undercooked; the next ones were rubbery and overdone.

But they ate all of them, sitting side by side next to the fire, and when Azula leaned against him and tucked her small cold feet under his leg, he put an arm around her like Mother used to.

"Azula?" he said softly when her head dropped against his shoulder.

She was fast asleep. 

Zuko looked down at the top of her head, and then he wiped his hands on his robe and very carefully picked her up.

"You're heavy," he muttered. She wasn't _that_ much younger.

But she didn't stir; she slept soundly as he carried her carefully, stumbling sometimes under her weight, through the halls of the palace. She didn't even wake as he tucked her in. She must have been very tired, he thought, and he wondered how many recent nights she'd waited out, as he had, aching for dawn and for what they could never have again.

Sitting on the edge of her sleeping pallet, he was startled into a jaw-cracking yawn.

And his feet were cold, and he didn't _want_ to walk back to his own cold bed.

He crawled in beside her, and pulled the blankets over both of them. She was very warm, a sleepy little bundle that curled up against him with soft, subconscious trust, the way she might once have curled up against their mother.

And Zuko was asleep almost as soon as his body relaxed.


End file.
